Library Thing is a social networking site available for users 13 and older. Users can catalog personal collections, keep reading lists, post book reviews, and chat to other users who have the same books. Users can browse the entire database by searching titles, authors, or tags generated by users as they enter books into their libraries.
How can you use it?
Library Thing can be used many different ways in the Language Arts classroom. Students could keep track of all the books they have read over the school year. They can write book reviews in place of book reports. Students can comment on each others reviews as another assignment.
In other subject areas students could read a book on a historical event and write a review for Social Studies. In Math or Science students could relate a book they read to what they are learning in other subject areas.
Why would you use it?
Students would benefit from being able to share and read other reviews by their peers.
Pros- Students may be motivated since many of them are already using a social network. There are privacy settings.
Cons- Students need to sign up for the service and have access to a computer at home to take full advantage of the site. While there are privacy settings, students could allow access to their page by members that they do not know.
Library Thing
What is it?
How can you use it?
Why would you use it?
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